TEFL Scam #2

As promised, here's another TEFL scam I came across recently, this one for a job in Spain. You may have seen it yourself, as it's been posted (in various forms) on several ESL job boards in the past month. Fortunately, people who are familiar with English teaching in Spain have spotted the scam and flagged it whenever possible.

So here's the deal: There is a real program through the Spanish Ministerio de Educacion for North Americans to work as teaching assistants for one year in Spain. I talk briefly about this program in my post "Some options for North Americans to live and work in Spain for a year". Some scumbag has copied most of the text from the official website (you can link there from my earlier post) but changed the salary to a ridiculously high wage for English teachers in Spain (ranging from 3,200 - 3,700 euros per month in the ads I've seen). If you check the REAL site, you'll see that the real program pays just 700 euros per month. The scam ad asks you to submit your details to

info@espanadeministeriodeeducacion.tk

Problem #1: Espana DE ministerio de educacion is not the correct name
Problem #2: Why would a Spanish site end in .tk and not .es?

Other than that, and the absurbdly high salary, the ad looks pretty legit, because they have copied the text from the real announcement. I did a little snooping around online and found out that when you respond to the fake ad, they send you an email saying you've been accepted and must send them 300 - 600 euros to arrange your visa. If you fall for that, they then tell you to send money to pay for your flight.

So here's the ad in its latest form. This one is taken from ESL Job Find, but I've seen it on several other sites as well. If you see anything like this elsewhere, please report the scammers to the website administrators!

"€ 3,700 GRANTS FOR NORTH AMERICAN & FOREIGN LANGUAGE & CULTURE ASSISTANTS IN SPAIN 2009-2010 school year

APPLY NOW!

The Ministry of Education of Spain (MEPSYD) announces over 1,200 openings for U.S. and Canadian Language & Culture Assistants ("CULTURAL AMBASSADORS") in Spain, for the 2009-2010 school year.The positions are offered in the K-12 public school system.

WHAT'S NEW
The ONLINE application has just been opened through PROFEX.
Candidates apply online and submit their documentation electronically. Please note that, in order for the application submitted to become fully validated, candidates ARE ALSO REQUIRED to mail copies of the application to info@espanadeministeriodeeducacion.tk only.
Positions available ALL OVER SPAIN!

PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Assistants will have the opportunity to learn about the Spanish language and culture and use their experience upon their return to the United States or Canada, thus developing cultural understanding between the citizens of Spain and the United States of America and Canada.
The program provides Spanish students and teachers of English an opportunity to broaden and increase their knowledge of the English language and North American culture through interaction with native speakers.
The Autonomous Regions will assign all candidates, individually, to their city and elementary or secondary school. You may not choose your city. The we and some of the Regional Education Authorities will organize orientation seminars at the beginning of the school year.

Requirements
Candidates will:
* Hold a U.S. or Canadian passport.
* Be an upcoming junior or senior college student or have successfully completed a BA, BS, MA or MS by the end of the current academic year.
* Be in good mental and physical health. Specific conditions of the grant
* A monthly allowance of € 3,700 after taxes, (USD $ 4,783.54 ; CAD $ 6,070.56 , as of November 24, 2008). The duration of the grant is eight 1 year, April 09 to May, 2010.
* Medical insurance.
* Teacher orientation course at the beginning of the school year.
* Official Certificate, issued by the Regional Government.
* Paid school holidays: Christmas and Easter.
* All additional expenses (such as lodging, transportation to and from the country of origin, and meals) are the assistant’s responsibility.
* In order to participate in the program, will need to apply for a visa at the Spanish immigration, once they have been accepted in the program.

Application procedure
* Applications will be submitted online and sent to our central server in Madrid. All applications will be processed electronically by means. Candidates can start their application process now by contacting info@espanadeministeriodeeducacion.tk
* Positions will be assigned on a first-come first-served basis provided that candidates meet all the requirements and conveniently support their applications. An application is considered "fully submitted" when our online interview form is fully completed.
* Accepted candidates will be notified of their assigned region in Spain by email within two weeks after the deadline and lists of assigned schools will also be available on Profex.
* Please note: Application for the Language and Culture Assistants program is free and no fees will be required, except for your visa processing.

ESPANA DE MINISTERIO DE EDUCACIÓN.
Mr. Jorge Luengo
C/Alcalá, 36
28071, Madrid
Tell:(+34) 6286 77346
info@espanadeministeriodeeducacion.tk
http://espanadeministeriodeeducacion.tk"

TEFL Job Scams: Example #1

You've all heard of the Nigerian email scams, right? Well, there's another scam that has worked its way into the TEFL world and functions quite similarly. My friend recently replied to an ad on Craigslist seeking an EFL tutor for a Spanish boy moving to Chicago. The father of the boy gave many details on his level, needs, etc. as well as information on where the family would be living in Chicago. It seemed very legit -- until she received the following email:

"This is to notify you that you have been given a provisional appointment to be the ESL teacher for my child. You are selected based on your experience and passion to teach children.

Please note that the teaching will take place at my residence and i will be arriving precisely May 15th but the lesson starts on Monday May 18th.

Here is what i want to offer you:
1.Teaching for 10hrs/week.
2. That i will be paying you $300/week or $30/hr and $20/week for transportation.
3.Anytime from 3.00pm weekdays and 11.00am on weekends is suitable.

I will send you one of my US cashier check of $1,999 which i bought the last time i came to the US. I will write the check payable to your name so you could cash it at your bank.

I am sending you that much money because of my step-dad's Alzheimer's disease.My step-dad got sick couple of months ago which made me spent lots of money taking care of his medical bills.

The cashier check is for USA which is cashable at your bank and its not cashable here in UK.

As soon as you receive the check, take it to the bank and cash it and deduct $320 which is one week teaching charges with transport fee, also deduct $50 for the purchase of the teaching materials needed for the kid.Please note that i will be responsible for your tax because i am employing you as a private tutor for my kid.

Then send the balance of the money to my ticket agent in London so i can buy the family flight ticket. We are coming from London, UK.

I will like to have your full name and address so that the check can be sent to you as soon as possible.

Accept my congratulations!
Luis Iniesta."

Can you spot the scam? Well, just to be sure, she did a little research online and discovered that another tutor had received an almost identical email regarding a tutoring job in a different city. The name of the "father" was different, but the rest was the same: originally from Spain, currently in the UK, arriving in the US in a few weeks, sending a cashier's check because he had them left over after taking care of his father's illness (not Alzheimer's, but "sickness" in general), and needed the rest sent back to pay for the family's flight ticket.

In case you don't know how these scams work, I'll tell you: The "father" sends a fake cashier's check that looks real enough to be accepted by a bank. It usually takes about 10 days for a cashier's check to clear, but the banks will often give you the cash immediately or within a few days. Later, when they realize it was fake, you have to return the cash to them. So in this case, had my friend accepted the deal, she would likely be out $3,628, because from the original $1,999, she would have sent $1,629 to the guy in the UK and then had to return $1,999 to the bank.

As if tutors don't have it hard enough already. My friend is struggling to make ends meet during the worst recession of her lifetime. She is living day-t0-day, and the last thing she needed was this. First of all, the emotional aspect: After months of failed job applications, she thought she had finally found something, and well-paid enough to cover her monthly rent and living expenses; but then it turns out to be a scam, and she is back to nothing. Secondly, the potential financial whammy: She could have been out $3,628 that she really cannot afford to lose. Thankfully, she sensed something was wrong and did some research before agreeing to this ruse; however, there are some people who, particularly in these times of desperation, might have been too excited at the prospect of a job and money, and might have fallen victim to these horrible, horrible people.

So this is just a warning to EFL tutors around the world to be careful. All you have to do is search "tutor scams" or "ESL tutor scams" online, and you can find hundreds of similar stories. Usually you can spot the scammers, but as time goes on they get better at their "job" and become more convincing. In my next post, I'll talk about another EFL job posting scam that I came across today.

True stories of Americans being deported from Spain

A lot of my friends -- especially my Spanish ones -- thought I was being paranoid when I made the decision to leave Madrid last fall. They didn't believe it was possible for a North American to be deported, despite the growing crackdown on sin papeles in Spain. I understood where they were coming from, since none of us had ever known an American who was sent home by the police in Spain (though I did know an Australian and an American who were caught in other EU countries). But since I was living in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood, I witnessed first-hand the increased pressure on immigrants in Madrid. There were random ID checks, usually as people came out of the Metro station at night, and several of the immigrant families in my own building had mysteriously disappeared. While I also believed it was unlikely I would ever really have problems, I knew that the possibility did exist, and the consequences were far too great to ignore.

It now seems my paranoia was justified. In February, there were reports that the police in certain parts of Madrid had to meet a weekly quota for the detention of illegal immigrants. Around the same time, they reported that the number of illegal immigrants thrown out of Valencia had doubled in the past year. My Spanish friend told me there was also talk of fining any legal residents of Spain who lived with or rented flats to illegals. And yet, we always believed that the illegal Americans, Canadians, etc. would probably not be affected by any of this. For the most part, it's probably true, and it's unlikely that a clean-cut English teacher is going to be asked for ID on the streets of Madrid. But one wrong move, or one unlucky circumstance that draws attention to you from the authorities, and it could be game over...

If you're not convinced, check out this recent article from European Vibe:
http://www.europeanvibe.com/imagenes_revista/340_pdf.pdf

Of particular importance is the end of the second-to-last paragraph, where it states:
"If the [deportation] papers are processed however, then he’s banished from the European continent for six to nine years!"

Think about it. That's a VERY long time. Anyone who's willing to take the risk to live illegally in Spain must have some sort of strong attachment to the place, or to someone who lives there, or to Europe in general. So imagine not being able to visit that person or that place for six to nine years. It's incomprehensible. And that's why I decided to follow the old mantra of "Better safe than sorry". I miss Spain. A lot. And at times I have the urge to hop on a plane and go back there and give it another go. But the thought that I could be banned from the country and continent I love so much -- and of which I still have much to explore -- is what keeps me grounded. I'll get back there someday -- but not unless I can be legal.

In the news: Spanish bar owner to serve five years for excessive noise!

As someone who suffered immensely from the excessive noise of the bar located down the street from my flat in Madrid, I was surprised and pleased to read the following story about a bar owner in Barcelona who will pay the price for her bar's excessive noise.

The owner was sentenced to more than five years in prison and fined 17,000 euros as a penalty for the physical and psychological damages suffered by the bar's neighbors due to its excessively loud music system and patrons. Fining bars for extreme noise is not uncommon, for sure, but five years of jail time? While five years does seem excessive at first glance, I can relate to the neighbors who had to endure this torture for so many years. It's no secret that a good night's sleep is important to our physical and mental health, and several months or years of disrupted sleep can really take its toll on you.

My building in Madrid was around the corner from a disco/karaoke bar that blasted music so loudly, it made our windows shake. When the music finally ended around 2 a.m. (every night, even on Sundays), the drunken patrons would congregate in the street or parking lot below our building and yell, sing, fight, smash bottles... We, the neighbors, took turns yelling at them, threatening to call the police, and at times carrying through on those treats. But nothing ever changed. Some neighbors resorted to throwing water, eggs, and even yogurt down on the patrons below, which naturally did nothing more than provoke them, so they were even more obnoxious. And so, for my last year in Spain, I had to rely on earplugs, siestas, and coffee to maintain some semblance of alertness.

I applaud the judge for taking such a strong stance against irresponsible bar owners with little regard for the health and wellbeing of their neighbors. I hope, for the sake of my friends and former neighbors who still suffer from the excessive noise of inconsiderate bar owners and bar patrons in Spain, that other judges will soon follow suit.